Friday, May 04, 2007

Social Networks: For the community, by the community, of the community

That is the important message members of Digg have sent, setting forth a template of an action plan for all those who think they are running a social network site/business.

They are not running anything. The community is running itself.

The community wants to be heard. That is the main idea of communities everywhere. We are making too much of sharing. No one in the village shares except news about the latest weather.

The Digg revolt has a serious (& timely) lesson for all those who run social networks: be fair. Be transparent.

As this article points out, if Digg administrators had shared the information (cease and desist letter, in this case) and the dilemma, and discussed what step to take next, the madness of the crowd would not have taken place.

Discussing things. Bringing issues out in the open.It is how popular leaders in successful democracies and organizations do things.

We must keep in mind that new-fangled nations like that of Digg have no boundaries or Visa requirements.Paraphrasing Doc Holliday,“your hypocrisy only takes you so far.”

It is ironical that despite all that talk of two-way conversations, the bosses at Digg forgot to use the tools they keep championing all the time.

All it would have taken was a single story submission by Kevin Rose, with the headline:“Digg users, we have a problem.”